I’ve been happy with my Opns and use my iPhone for streaming music and phone calls direct to the HAs. Works really well. But I haven’t used the remote microphone functionality because I’d have to put my iPhone at a distance from me and also not sure how useful the functionality is. I tried it once or twice but was underwhelmed with the sound quality. And I believe it turned off my local mics.
Has anyone had success with this functionality? Wondering if buying the Connect Clip would offer a superior experience?
Thanks
David
I’ve found the ConnectClip to be very useful for one on ones in a restaurant. I also tried Live Listen on my iPhone and found it to be somewhat cumbersome and not that effective. The ConnectClip is small and pretty easy to clip on your partner. The sound quality has been very good and there are adjustments that can be made in the fitting software if you need any tweaks.
When I try to use Live Listen, it doesn’t turn off the OPN onboard mics (if that’s what you meant by “my local mics”). But Live Listen requires that the speaker puts the mouth very close to the iPhone’s mic for it to be more effective. As close as like when you’re on a call on the iPhone the normal way. So it’s not very useful because the phone is heavy and nobody wants to continuously hold the heavy phone close to their mouth.
On the other hand, the ConnectClip is smaller and lighter and can be clipped on their clothing nearby and it probably can pick up sound better than the iPhone mic can, too.
Thanks @Abarsanti and @Volusiano, it sounds like the ConnectClip would be a much better option for Live Listen than iPhone. However it’s really only a one on one solution. If you are with a group of people in a restaurant it wouldn’t be that helpful. It would be ideal if it could bolster voices from multiple people sitting away from me. Or sometimes I’m in a work meeting and again it would be helpful if it would pick up multiple people at the other end of a table, but just one isn’t that helpful.
You might want to consider getting 2 Phonak Roger Table Mics and a Roger MyLink. I don’t know the cost so it could be too pricey for you and you’d need to wear the MyLink around your neck, but it connects to any hearing aid with a T coil (hope you have that) and you could put one at each end of the table and network them.
Interesting suggestion @sufhl. However I don’t think opn 1 has telecoil, which sucks. I wonder how others in business are solving the challenges of hearing in even a medium sized room with 10 or so people—- especially with some who are soft spoken or have thick accents! It’s stressful!
Does anybody know if the Oticon OPN has a way of connecting to multiple table microphones? It doesn’t look like a Roger Receiver will plug into a ConnectClip (but don’t know that for sure) There are Oticon OPNs with tcoils, but that sounds like a rather kludgy way to use the Roger Table mics as described above. I know it’s workable with Resound and Phonak. Anybody know other hearing aid compatibilities?
It’s a poor answer, multiple unmatched mic sources will do more to diminish the sound quality as the sound from different speakers hits them with different phase delay so the original signal becomes corrupted.
@davidbarry I often find myself in meetings in medium sized rooms with ten or more people in a business setting and I wear the Opn 1 as well. I try to sit closest to those I’ll either have trouble hearing (because they’re soft spoken) or to who I know will do most of the talking. I usually do fairly well in this setting although I still struggle with soft spoken people and will ask them for repeats when needed. I haven’t found a perfect solution either. I have a fairly direct personality so I’ll make jokes at times like “can you speak up so the deaf guy can hear you?”
@Abarsanti I do a similar strategy and with the opns I don’t do too bad. I would’ve been hosed with my old HAs. Even with these strategies I likely miss 25% of what is said and what’s frustrating is the throwaway comments that are always difficult. Being more assertive is really necessary. I’m not terrific in some group meetings with execs in general as I am more introverted but for key points I need to ask people to repeat… some type of humor could be good… “listened to too much rock and roll”
I certainly identify with the group meeting (e.g., conference room) experiences articulated by Abarsanti and davidbarry. I’m sometimes assertive in asking participants to speak up or repeat, but other times that seems like a poor strategy if the speakers are potential clients, for example. In these situations, my Opn1s are a little better than my Agile Pros, but not a whole lot better.
My experience with trying to use Live Listen in restaurant environments is consistent with what others have stated: It doesn’t work very well at all. And although I’ve surrendered most of my hearing impairment vanity, I’m still reticent to tell someone, “Here, hold and speak into my iPhone so I can hear you”. So that leaves a question: What has anyone used Live Listen for that really works well for them?
[quote=“Overoaked, post:11, topic:35791”]
What has anyone used Live Listen for that really works well for them?
[/quote] There’s a review on the main Hearing Tracker site where a gentleman reviews one of the Resound LiNX aids and talks about how his wife was in a terrible accident. He couldn’t hear well in the noisy ER so he passed his iPhone to the medical staff to get instructions. Obviously that’s an extreme example, but it can be useful in one off situations.
You are correct that Roger recoeiver will not plug into Connect Clip. It may seem kludgey but I don’t know of a better solution for a long table. I have OPN 1 with t-coil.
I take it you don’t think much of the Roger Table Mic II? I know you don’t think much of Roger in general, or at least that’s the impression I’ve gotten.
Nothing wrong with them in a situation where you can govern the parameters of use, and need standardisation across multiple manufacturer technologies - somewhere like a school.
However, if I was to walk up to you with your snazzy new automobile and offer you an aftermarket upgrade FM radio with built in walk-in/talkie function, when your car was already carrying full Digital/Bluetooth integrated into the dashboard, would you think it was a good deal? More so if it was a third of the price of your car and required a big lump of receiver/aerial to be fixed to the outside of it?
I’ve never seen why Phonak pushes them so hard - outside of education, it’s the equivalent of them making a market out of vinyl records. THen again, they’ve also told everyone that rechargeable is better than MFi and people are buying that too.
I agree that FM transmission is SO outdated in this day and age. What Phonak should have done is to improve the Roger Pen and whatever else mic they have to transmit in digital.
I do not have a technical background, but looking at Phonak literature, it claims to be “the new digital standard.” FM and bluetooth are also mentioned depending on which piece of literature I’m looking at. I also briefly looked at a patent (which was recent) and also claimed be digitital.
I agree with @Um_bongo. It is a clunky, dated system. Why no upgrade? I believe that have a cash cow in the education field that is even more lucrative than aids themself. And it’s an addon product providing an additional market. If they made it easy, they’d have competition.
